Performance art activist inserts wool into her vagina, and knits for 28 days consecutively, and her menstrual cycle was not a performance deterrent. A Viral Sensation.

Casey Jenkins is an Australian based feminist performance art activist, but she prefers to be defined as a craftivist, for a “latter” of a better term. Craftivism is the juxtaposition of two generic lexicons, craft and activism, the merging of two mutually exclusive spheres creating a single definition, and redefining a movement, it encompasses activism and performance art as a medium of expression, to promoting political and social change.

The performance piece is called, “Casting Off My Womb,” where for 28 days, Casey Jenkins inserted skeins of wool into her genitalia, coiled in a loosely fashion, allowing a tiny protruding hole, that allows her to slowly unravel the wool; and she knits away, as the wool slowly cascades out her vaginal passageway. This process was done on daily basis, and although she admits that the artistic process can evoke an arousal, her menstrual cycle is not a performance deterrent. Now that’s a self-defying commitment viable to an immense award indeed.

In less than a week, the video has accumulated over 2,115,579 million views and was favorited over 1,474 times. Her video has spiraled like wild-fire, exploding on the internet like a thunderstorm, and striking the airwaves while catapulting across social medias. There’s also no denying, that protruding pubic-hair is quite a clever indirect way of capitalizing on a semi-niche porn audience. I guess it’s contingency embarks on the influence of curiosity, an obvious logic only the naive would rule out.

A high number of viewers are feminist, with westernized ideologies, a nonchalantly provocative undertone is indeed a pejorative to the third-world misogynistic porn-fanatics. An inadvertent premeditated accomplishment for the feminist movement.

Craftivism has a kind of euphemistic connotation, I would coin a more precise term, craftuality, a mixture of craft and sexuality, an obvious notion to ponder on, because in an objective sense, the rudimentary criteria’s involved here is, craft and sexuality. The ingenious nature of this artistic piece is ambiguous, and left up to the viewer’s subjective interpretations. (viewers discretion is not advised)

Craftivism is the power of individuality reclaiming art and exploring expression outside the parameters of conformity, taking craft to public places, such as the streets, parks or any rural area where art/craft can be expressed. It also promotes the resistance of contemporary mass production, and the pursuit of handmade craft as an optimistic goal. Craftivism is multifaceted in its array, and a single news article will only explore a minuscule of justice; Nevertheless…

Viral videos have always been the apex of the virtual highway, an enigma we all grapple to demystify, especially in an online medium where the myriad of contents seem like an array of infinity. A video that protrudes itself above the rest, ultimately creates an audience dichotomy; the sensationalistic cult following, versus the viewers who find the video’s success vaguely inexplicable.

The most intriguing phenomenon, is the paradigmatic peculiarity of some videos, the one that spawns a cultural rebirth, changes our perspective, and garners in a chain of plagiarism. Our fate in seeing the obvious, is always a stranger in oblivion, a baffling irony that only a tiny few never falls victim to.

In the gist of conformity, commonality permeates like a latent syndrome, a predisposed stigma we’re classically trained to do; However, when an anomaly prevails, and their deviation is a must, it reminds us of how our mundanity of life is a lackluster.
Casey Jenkins’ peculiar introspection is an inexorable success that will linger indefinitely; I say this without a sense of irony!

Casey Jenkin’s Philosophy (excerpts from her youtube video)

“The piece for me is about, assessing, and I guess, being intimate with my own body. I want to, I guess not just walk off and become a cultural lemming, I want to make an informed decision.”